FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT MACARONI AND CHEESE - PAGE 3

Tough times call for some serious comfort food, and macaroni and cheese is a staple of that category. That's added up to a nice payday for manufacturers. As a whole, macaroni and cheese sales are up 25 percent over the last four years, to $802 million. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner accounts for the vast majority of category growth, which likely means more parents, willingly or not, have joined their kids in more bright-orange dinners. There are much smaller but also growing competitors, like Annie's, which sells itself on taste as well as natural claims, and private label, which is sometimes half the Kraft price.

Kid favorite, college dorm staple, desperate dinner, guilty pleasure. Yes, boxed macaroni and cheese can fill all these roles. And because it's back-to-school September, we thought it would be a good time to taste a few varieties. A few? Little did we know there would be so many. Even when we eliminated the fancier versions packaged with liquid and not powdered sauces, we still wound up with 11. We tried to be realistic tasters, keeping in mind that boxed mixes cannot duplicate the rich flavor of homemade macaroni and cheese.

Halloween might be the best day of the year for little ghosts and gremlins. Besides the funny costumes, there are trick-or-treat goodies and spooky stories. So here's a menu to add to the day's delight that's filled with fun, easy-to-make foods that add a touch of whimsy. Perhaps best of all, there are several recipes that little hands can help make. Halloween menu Tombstone treats Ghoulie joes Monster mac Witches` brew TOMBSTONE TREATS Preparation time: 20 minutes Yield: 8 servings Simple to assemble, these edible placecards will delight the mini monsters.

Sugar and spice and everything nice-that's what the crew of pint-sized chefs at the Elk Grove Park District are made of. Displaying table etiquette that would warm the heart of Miss Manners, the students enrolled in the park district's Kids in the Kitchen class were found whipping up a batch of healthy sweet rolls on a recent blustery January morning. Wearing a crisp apron and a shy smile, 5-year-old Jocelyn Frankel of Elk Grove Village munched on apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon while she and her classmates waited for the buzzer to signal that their creations were ready to come out of the oven.

Remember making mud pies and sand cakes as a kid? Dream Dinners, a chain of do-it-yourself mealmaking operations, is just as much fun--but the result tastes a lot better. Plus, there's no cleanup for the cook. The Seattle-based chain opened its first area operation in Naperville, and word-of-mouth has customers coming back for seconds. "I heard about it from my sister, who lives in Arizona," said Ann Welninski of Hoffman Estates, attending her second session with a neigh-bor.

Nancy Reagan is reported to have paid San Francisco astrologer Joan Quigley $3,000 a month for her advice-discreetly, of course, using a California friend to launder the payments, lest Don Regan find out and tattle to the press. Even Nancy's husband didn`t catch on for "quite a few months," she says in her new book, "My Turn." Three thou is a lot of money to sneak out of the family budget every month, even for information about when it's safe for Air Force One to take off and what time of day is most propitious for signing an arms treaty.

These anecdotes are from a new book, "What the Great Ate: A Curious History of Food and Fame" (Three Rivers Press, $14), by brothers Matthew and Mark Jacob. Matthew Jacob works for a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C.; his brother, Mark, is a deputy metro editor at the Chicago Tribune. The illustrations were produced by Tribune staff artist Rick Tuma. The book's Web site is whatthegreatate.org. Some might view show business as a dog-eat-dog world. And indeed a lot of unusual things are consumed offstage.

Age: 11. Birthplace: Los Angeles. Occupations: Student and actress. Current home: Los Angeles. Working on: "Babes in Toyland," an NBC-TV special airing Dec. 21. Worst job: I did a McDonald's commercial where I had to take a bite of a hamburger but not eat it. It made me really angry because I love McDonald's. The last good movie I saw was: "Stand by Me." I stay home to watch: "Dynasty." The book I`ve been recommending lately is: "Written in the Stars," a teenage-romance novel.

You're sick. You're hacking and coughing, and you no longer live in the same city as your mother, so she can't take care of you. It's that time of year when more than 200 viruses hit their peak and make you feel miserable. Your doctor said antibiotics don't help viruses. What will? Besides listening to your mom, here's a list from health experts: - Eat at least two cups of fresh fruit each day. Peel that orange! Bite into those strawberries! Your blood will soon be streaming with nutrients such as vitamin C to fight that nasty cold.

Kraft Foods Inc. reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings Tuesday, but some of the most positive news was in the details. Northfield-based Kraft, maker of Oreo cookies and Oscar Mayer meats, reported first-quarter earnings of $660 million, or 45 cents per share, up 10 percent from the same period last year. On average, analysts expected 40 cents per share. A commodity-hedging gain of $87 million accounted for 3 cents per share of profit, the majority of the difference between what Kraft recorded and what Wall Street expected, analysts said.